


Four Times Sam Thought He Saw A Ghost At Stanford (Then one Time He Did But Didn’t Know It)

by lightly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightly/pseuds/lightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's past before becoming a hunter again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Sam Thought He Saw A Ghost At Stanford (Then one Time He Did But Didn’t Know It)

_I. (The indefinable thing in the bush)_

 

The ball swish-swished easily into the net, a roar of appreciation from the gathering crowd followed its perfectly timed trajectory. Sam’s face split into an impossibly wide grin, he reached out to answer Nate’s enthusiastic high five while across the court, their opponents scowled at them.

“Winchester, man, I knew, I _knew_ , with you on my side there was no way to lose.”

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky. Next time I might not be around to stop you from getting your ass handed to you. Seriously, leave it to you to turn a friendly game of Horse into a knock down grudge match.”

“Awww, I coulda handled it. It would just have been less painful for them without you.”

“Whatever, c’mon.” Sam quickly stooped down to scoop up the ball, tucking it under one arm he jogged over to their erstwhile competition – two surly juniors named Rick and Bobby. Nate looked a little unsure as to what Sam was doing, but he followed after a moment.

“Good game, guys.” Sam said, trying to keep the smugness out of his smile long enough to offer a handshake to the least surly one – Bobby, he thought but couldn’t honestly remember. Bobby – Rick, whichever – didn’t say anything. His scowl deepened and he lashed out a hand to knock the ball out from under Sam’s arm.

“Nice,” Sam muttered, watching the ball bounce away into the bushes. Bobby – Rick, whichever – flipped him the bird and he and Rick – Bobby, whichever – stalked away. Sam chased after the ball; Nate shrugged and sauntered back across the basketball court towards the chorus of friendly voices.

 

The bushes moved. Sam swore they moved. It wasn’t anything more than a slight rustle, but there was no wind on this sweaty afternoon. Sam shivered despite the heat, cold sweat beaded on his forehead but he quickly swiped it away.

“It’s just a cat, don’t be such a dick.”

His stern self lecture made him feel better for all of a second before he was moving to part the offending shrubs. If there was one thing he had learned through the years, it was never just a cat.

With his natural instincts fully kicked in, he gently parted the leaves, taking pains to do it quietly so not to disturb whatever lay behind them. But disturb it he did and a small ball of fur yipped back angrily at him. So, it wasn’t a cat. Just some mutant, half breed, black fuzz ball of a lap dog. Despite himself, the tiny bark had caught Sam off guard and surprise propelled him backwards out of the foliage.

“Sam!” Nate called to him. “Quit acting the damn fool and get your lanky ass back over here!”

 

 _II. (The shadow in the library)_

 

I was late. Like, library was about to shut late. Everyone else had gone; it was just Sam and Margaret, the rickety old librarian left now. Sam hadn’t realized at first, so engrossed was he in his work that it wasn’t until Margaret’s soft _“ahem”_ that he was alerted to the time.

“I don’t know young man,” She muttered, busying herself with helping Sam to pick up his mess of books. “You don’t need to study all the time.” Margaret looked at the titles of the books and frowned. “Will you be checking these out?”

“Uh, no, thank you. I got what I need.”

“Oh, and I just put the ladder away.”

“That’s ok,” Sam said, taking the books from the old lady’s hands. “I got them Mrs Humphries.”

“Such a nice boy.” She said. Sam could feel her eyes on him when he turned around, it was vaguely disconcerting. “I see why that blonde girl kept looking at you.” She appreciated. “I think you hurt her feelings when you didn’t look back at her.”

“What girl?” He started to ask her, but when he turned around she was already walking away muttering to herself. Sam shrugged and started to put away his books.

He was just sliding the last one home when the light flickered and then slammed off.

 _Oh great, this can’t be good._

“Mrs Humphries?” Sam called out. No answer. “Mrs Humphries?” He shouted again, but still nothing. “Just great.” He sighed, his hand slipping to the small of his back where he usually tucked his gun. He stopped and cursed himself, but he didn’t know what he was cursing himself for.

Slowly he crept through the silent stacks; the already cool air of the library had started to chill towards freezing. This really wasn’t good.

“Mrs Humphries?” He whispered this time. He turned into the Economics section and found himself facing a pale shadow, almost indistinguishable from the dark. Almost. “Mrs Humphries?” He said again, his voice thick with a futile hope.

“Young man.” A sudden voice called from behind him. “I do not have many years left and you just scared away the remaining with all your shouting. I thought you had gone.”

“No, um, I’m going now.”

“Good. I need to call maintenance.” I don’t know what it up with these lights lately.”

 

 _III. (The man in the chair)_

 

To be fair, the old man had looked dead. Sam was just trying to stop Nate from poking him to make sure.

“Dude, it’s just disrespectful.”

Somehow, without Sam noticing, the old man had uncurled his hand from its tight fist and wrapped gnarled fingers around his wrist, pulling Sam close when the man startled awake. Nate had practically crapped his pants but covered it by ragging on Sam.

“Man, you scream like a girl.”

“Nate, I swear, sometimes you remind me of my brother so much that its just not funny.”

“Since I know sweet FA about this brother of yours that had better be a compliment, Winchester!”

“It is.” Sam said with a smile. “Mostly.”

 

 _IV. (The noise in the dark)_

 

He’d heard rumours that Kimble Hall was haunted. He heard stories about a ghostly figure of a mournful young woman who walked the quad of Lagunita Court on the third of every month. He heard outlandish and ridiculous tales where details were fuzzy and the teller couldn’t keep the plot points straight, usually because they were drunk.

But Sam quietly investigated them all anyway. Or at least the ones that sounded almost plausible, because he couldn’t not.

Midnight of the second day of spring break found him walking the avenues of Vanden. The sprawling campus wasn’t quite deserted; there were enough people around for him to be able to ditch his stuff and blend into a small crowd if he needed to, but few enough so that large parts of the campus were empty of curious passers by. There was however, one lone person walking away from Sam’s destination. The man – Sam assumed, he was wearing a think hoodie with the hood up – adjusted the hold he had on his canvas bag, unconsciously Sam did the same. The man turned his hooded head in Sam’s direction and Sam swore the guy nodded at him. And then the man was gone, swallowed up by the shadows. A slow cold sweat wormed it’s way down Sam’s spine, but he shook if off and continued forward.

A soft, almost negligible baying sounded from somewhere in the darkness. A dying after thought of a scream that made Sam’s blood run cold, but by the time he reached where the noise had emanated, there was nothing there.

A low growl of a car engine followed Sam out into the night.

 

 _V. (The stranger in the alley)_

 

Sam soon stopped looking into the shadows. He spent the better part of his Freshman year in a heightened state of paranoia, always afraid – sometimes stupidly afraid – that something was going to come out at him, drag him back and away from his new life. But there was nothing, there never was anything and he began to relax. He could almost feel the years of tension unravel into complacency, but as he straightened his collar and nervously knocked on the door to Jessica Moore’s room he felt like it was worth it.

He fumbled through his first date, distracted by her smile and her hair and he wondered how he could have ever not known her. He walked her home and they kissed awkwardly, he said goodnight and walked back to his room feeling like he was walking on air, it was all slowly coming together.

For one heart stopping moment, he thought he saw someone in the small alley way next to his Hall, but the ghost of something just melted away as he got closer.

“Dean?” Sam whispered. He didn’t get a reply, he didn’t really expect one. He smiled sadly and pushed through the doors of the hall and headed up to his room.

 

FIN


End file.
